Berlin – German anti-semitism and resentment towards Israel has risen sharply in recent months, with more than one in four respondents in a new poll equating the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi persecution of Jews during World War Two.
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The bi-annual survey on xenophobia in Germany by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation showed broad measures of anti-semitism on the decline over the past decade.
But it also showed a spike in negative views towards Israel and Jews in general between June and September, coinciding with the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.
More than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed during the 50-day Gaza conflict. On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers and six civilians died.
When asked in September, for example, whether they believed Jews, because of their actions, were partly responsible for their own persecution, 18 percent of respondents agreed, up from less than 8 percent in June.
Just over 27 percent of those surveyed in September said they broadly or fully agreed with the idea that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians was no different than Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, when six million Jews were murdered.
That survey result was still down significantly from 2004, when over 51 percent of respondents agreed with this statement.
One in five respondents, in the survey of 1,915 German citizens, said Israel’s policies made Jews less likeable.
“The lines between anti-semitism and substantive criticism of Israel are becoming blurred and that is a problem,” the Friedrich Ebert Foundation said in a statement.
The survey was released a week after German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned at a conference in Berlin that “hatred of Jews” was on the rise in Germany and across Europe amid spiraling violence in the Middle East.
During the height of the Gaza war this summer, Jews were attacked and slogans like “Gas the Jews!” chanted at pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Germany.
Petrol bombs were also thrown at a synagogue in the western city of Wuppertal which had been burnt down on Kristallnacht – a Nazi attack on the Jews in 1938 – and subsequently rebuilt.
Do they need an excuse?
And don’t forget! They were the Nazis who persecuted the Jews during World War Two…
Non-Jews who are against Israel are probably antisemitic as well. But that doesn’t take away the fact that Israel is putting Jews worldwide into grave danger.
Zionism with its claim for a Jewish state benefited from antisemitism. If you read Theodor Herzl’s diary you will all see how he explains how only antisemitism will further his cause.
Israel always wanted for Jews to make Aliyah as if is a safe place.Fact shows again this week how Jews were nebach hacked to death
Jews pushing for the cause of taking over the temple mount have their hands full of blood.Even by just going up to the Har Habayit they are noting more then Rodfim.They are at fault for this weeks butchering of Jews by Arab blood thirsty murderess
It’s always been anti-semitism. Anti-Israel is what they’ve been hiding it behind and now they’re out in the open about it. As far as Germany and anti-semitism are concerned, need one say more?
New excuse. Same old story.
The big difference between German anti-Semitism in the 1930’s and German anti-Semitism today is that in the 1930’s, it was openly fostered and supported by the Nazi government. Anti-Semitism was policy and law. Today’s German government has bent over backwards to help Israel and has laws on the books making it a crime to deny the Holocaust. That’s not to say that this behavior will always continue but there is a big difference between the government being anti-Semitic and a bunch of rabble-rousers making noise.
The anti Semitic dark heart of the german is once again rearing its ugly head after a brief hiatus.
You mean you agree with the idea that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is no different than your German-Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, when you murdered six million of us, Jews?
And now you even dare to open your mouth?